Winning and retaining great customers requires investment in a range of sales promotions. Of the ten main types of sales promotion, the most important is the sales proposal offering great benefits to each key sales prospect, followed by the tender bid and the preferred supplier proposal. Target customers who become impressed by all ten types should be the easiest to convince. The aim is to ensure that your promotion is professional enough in each of the ten types to dominate that of your two main competitors. Each of the ten should project the same powerful competitive message based on careful planning and up-to-date market research. Incremental improvements can keep all your sales promotions ahead of competitors so that target customer teams always see yours as their preferred choice.

(c) This Opinion by Tom Evison was first published by Tecads in February 2018